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Nolikan
The Nolikan language (native name: Nolikine carag) is an umbrella term for a group of related dialects of the Khacheric family. The language discussed here is the classical language of the Ankawidan empire (specifically called Ankawidano carag; possibly Anglicized as Ankawidanian), modern dialects are very divergent and the speakers use this one as a standard. It is also the language of the Achobisak, the Nurkhasibite holy book. Phonology Vowels The vowels /i u/ are always pronounced , but in unstressed open syllables before /j w/ they can be deleted - miyan 'dark' is more often pronounced than . In unstressed open syllables /a/ becomes , which merges with /e/ in speech of Shilkarya. Mitwa 'similar' is for the Shilkaryanis but in Old Ankawidan. Consonants There is obviously some allophonic variation, as described below: #A glottal stop occurs predictably before an initial vowel, e.g. anka 'pure' . It may be considered phonemic or not. # are dental, are laminal alveolars #Before a postalveolar or /j/, /l n/ are palatalized. #/n/ assimilates to a following velar stop #voiced obstruents are devoiced before a voiceless one. Sabxam 'dog (loc.)' is pronounced . However, there is no anticipatory voicing: eļga 'rib' is pronounced #/w/ is in Shilkarya, but this is attributed to Northern Khacheric influence, absent from Old Ankawidan which retains the semivowel . Stress When a word ends in a consonant, the last syllable is stressed; otherwise - the penultimate. The exceptions occur in some inflexional forms and are always marked in this grammar. Phonotactics Primary syllable structure of Nolikan is CV©, where /p w/ do not occur in coda position (at least in native vocabulary) and /j/ only in muyga 'mumble, jabber'. Geminates are banned; even in compounds they are simplified to simple consonants. However, many denizens of Ankawidan pronounced /ld/ as /ll/. Syncope It is an important phenomenon, occurring in many inflectional forms. Wherever three syllables of the form CV-CV-CV© occur, having the same vowel, the middle vowel is deleted. For example the locative of carag 'language' is cargam not caragam. Noun Nouns are inflected for case and number. Plurals almost always end in ''-ak'' Nolikan has 5 cases: ergative, absolutive, dative, genitive and locative. There is also a vocative particle ya, as in ya Esax 'O God'. There is no morphological distinction between nouns and adjectives. Nouns used as modifiers are always in absolutive singular, as in mal karzusa 'sweet kiss', ergative: mal karzusal, genitive plural: mal karzusane. Declensions Declension I – nouns ending in -a - cida 'day' Declension II – nouns ending in a consonant - ļir 'dream' Nouns that end in a stop have ''-še'' in dative plural and ''-ekam'' in locative plural: hob 'thing' yields hobše and hobekam. If tš dš clusters arise, they are simplified to c j: ubad 'horse' yields ubaje. Nouns ending in s have an assimilation in the dative: Kutas 'Satan' yields Kutasis in dat. sing. There is a group of nouns stressed on the penultimate syllable. They have syncope before all endings which begin with a consonant: náraj 'boat', gen. sing. narjo but gen. pl. narajne. A number of nouns in e i, such as pulhi 'belt' belong here. Wherever a hiatus could occur, an intrusive ģ is added (pulhiģil, pulhiģak). Me 'leg' and gi 'tooth' receive a w instead. declension III – nouns in vowels other than /a/ - mabu 'grandmother' The noun mek 'people' has its own declension. It occurs in the plural only. Case usage The absolutive marks subject of an intransitive sentence or the patient in a transitive sentence, as well as subject of a sentence in the middle or reciprocal voice: *'Axcin' menduha kibam arģa 'A boy sits in front of the house' *'Dixkimek' mospata 'The pagans were defeated' *'Zaxum si zaxod' karazoris 'Husband and wife are kissing' The ergative marks the agent in a transitive sentence. It is also used for causes of states and events: *ahmeha jahrisal sul 'Sad because of a friend's death With verbs of perception, the roles are reversed: *Binat cumanil linate 'The girl saw a barbarian' (he caused her to see him) The genitive marks possessor: *'axcino' sabax 'the boy's dog' It is also used before relational nouns: *'tolokne' niram 'above the trees' The dative marks indirect objects, as well as a superior in a relationship: *Xasibil Isol'iš' yag kenate 'Khasib gave the knife to Isol' *'axcince' menor 'the boys' father' *'Esaxiš' jimran 'I worship God' Subjects of modal verbs and verbs of knowledge and perception are in the dative: *'Lamiš' salawam colasa pirnat 'Noone is allowed to run naked' *'Neš' kur la sulpat 'I don't know this' It marks also the goal of motion: *'Ļimsariš' dode 'the road to Tlimsar' The ablative marks origin or source of motion: *'Acwirex zelanda' 'I went from the city (by foot)' *Wine carag Esaxex kenida 'Our language is a gift from God' This case is regularly used only in the Achobisak. In the classical language, which is around 200 years longer, it is replaced by the genitive except of personal pronouns. The locative marks location or path: *'acwiram' mek 'the people in the city' *'dodayam' zela 'he is going down the road' It is the case in which the relational nouns are used: *biškum šayam 'inside the belly' As the example above indicates, it is also used before relational nouns if the location is inside the landmark chosen. The locative has also an adverbial and comparative function: *'cetikam' tol zalat 'She sings freely' (sc. as she wants to) *'horbiļam' ruz 'evil as a demon' Most verbs have an ergative-absolutive allignment, but some have different. As seen above, jimra 'to worship, pray' has absolutive-dative, as do some other verbs, e.g. šarbe 'love'. Relational nouns Relational nouns are normal nouns gramatically, but they are distinguished by their meanings. Generally, they denote spatial relations. For example, nir means 'up', 'the upper part of something'. Relational nouns in the locative, genetive and dative are equivalents of Indo-European prepositions. Therefore, niram means 'above' or 'about', niro or nirex means 'from above' and niriš 'up (as a direction)'. Similarly, ļub means 'lack (of something)' but ļubam is 'without'. Pronouns Personal pronouns Among personal pronouns remains ģet, having the meaning of 'one's own'. Cf. *Mehendimil ģet rahib pezalata 'Warrior picked up his sword' (his own) *Mehendimil to rahib pezalata 'Warrior picked up his sword' (e.g. his enemy's) Demonstrative pronouns There are three basic ones: kad 'so', kur 'this' and haģe 'that'. They are the basis of all demonstrative expressions: *kadi 'such', derived from kad ''using the standard nominalizing morpheme ''-i. *kuram 'here' and hayam 'there' (both are locative cases, the latter was shortened from haģayam) *kum < *kur xazum 'now' and hazum < *haģe xazum 'then' Negative and interrogative pronouns They form pairs, differing only in initial consonant: *mam 'who' and lam 'no one' *mina 'where' and lina 'nowhere' *maļ 'what' and ļaļ 'nothing' *mange 'which' and lange 'neither' *ma and la (see below) There are three interrogative pronouns with no negative counterpart: mište 'how many', max 'when' and mok 'how'. Case forms are also employed: maļo means 'why' and maļil - 'what for'. There are also negative pronouns resulting from prefixing la 'no' before a demonstrative pronoun or relational noun, e.g. lakad 'no way' or laxzum 'never'. Nolikan has no wh-movement, unlike English: *Šarbidan maļ? 'What is love?' *Šarnaxil mam mandate? 'Whom has the sharnakh eaten?' Yes/no questions are formed by placing ma before the sentence: *'Ma ' šec sawa line? 'Do you see it' Any word can be negated by using la (al before vowels). To negate a sentence, one adds it before the entire VP: *Tawa al Esaxiš zibat. 'She does not believe in God' Another negative particle, bano, implies that the information negated used to be true: *'Bano' en wimaj. 'I am no longer strong' Indefinite pronoun Nolikan uses one indefinite pronoun, in. It is juxtaposed with a noun to produce the meaning desired, e.g. *in hob 'anything' *in mij 'any man', 'anyone' *in xazum 'anytime' Verbs Verbs agree with the absolutive argument of the sentence. There is no infinitive; the quotation form is the 3rd person present tense. Note that in the 3rd person there is no difference between numbers. Nolikan is pro-drop, but when absolutive personal pronouns are used for emphatic purposes, the verb is used in the 3rd person (better described as unmarked). Cf. jolun 'I'm alive' vs. en jolo 'I am alive' The verbs presented are representative of the three regular conjugations. They mean 'lead, drink, hurt'. Obviously, there are irregularities within these paradigms. There are also four so-called zero-stem verbs: ja 'do','' xot make', pol 'to be possible' and tis (existential verb). Every of them has its peculiarities, but ja was used as a representative. Present Aorist The aorist is used to express things true regardless of time; much like English Present Simple. Past If the stem contains already a c or j, the second person singular has št instead of c: eja 'to become' yields ejašta 'you became'. Future The future, apart from its obvious function, expresses impossible things: *Takšahiš dode mina '''decore? 'Where is (literally: will be found) the road to Texas?' (Texas was on another planet and there is no road there) Moods The imperative has two inflexional forms: The imperatives work as in a nominative-accusative language, with object in the absolutive put after them (this is the only exception from the verb-final word order): *'Mandi' wed! 'Eat bread' Optative is formed using the particle du after the verb in any tense: *Nal kur solkel la mahate du. 'I wish I hadn't drunk that wine' *Lemyadan cal decore du. 'May you find happiness' Voice Antipassive is formed by adding augment at the beginning of the verb: *Mulumoļ wed mande 'Workers eat bread' **Mulumak amande 'Workers eat (something)' If the stem of the verb begins with a vowel, intrusive r occurs to prevent hiatus. The antipassive cannot take a patient complement, at least in classical Ankawidanian. Constructions with the dative are however common in dialects. There are two more voices: middle, formed by the ending ''-rá'' and reciprocal in ''-ris'': * jegut 'you are hurt' **jegutrá 'they hurt themselves' **jegutris 'they hurt one another/each other' After š ļ, the r changes to t (jeguštá) and after n to d (jegundá). Final k in present and aorist forms is moved to word-final position in the middle voice and deleted altogether in the reciprocal: *jegobak 'you are hurt' **jegobarak 'you hurt yourselves' **jegobaris 'you hurt one another/each other' Numerals Other numbers are formed in a completely regular way, by summing the multiples of powers of ten: 2744 is po tehirak xaje tagniyak bir šodak bir. Fractions are formed with the denominator in ablative plural: maxke pehexak '3/8'. Derivational morphology Suffixation is the most common derivational process. Most common suffixes are given below: * '-m' – added to a verbal stem to form name of an agent **kumre 'to listen' →kumrim 'listener' * '-sa' (assimilated to '-ļa' or '-ša' depending on the final consonant of the root) to form nomina actionis: **karazo 'to kiss' →karzusa 'a kiss' **gimļe 'to wish' → gimļiļa 'a wish' * '-da' –forms names of patients: ** juke 'to hunt' →jukida 'game animal' * '-dan' (with '-tan' and '-an' as variants) form abstract nouns: **bar 'precious' →bardan 'price' **toš 'equal' →toštan 'equality' **wimaj 'strong' →wimajan 'strength' * '-kar' and '-men' for place names **nuda 'to wash' →nudakar 'bathroom' **hanwe 'flower' →hanwekar 'garden' **waho 'deity' →wahomen 'a shrine' * '-i' ('-ni' after a vowel) forms names of inhabitants: **Yoket →Yoketi 'Yoketian' **Šilkarya →Šilkaryani *the same suffix forms names of members of collectives: **cuma 'horde' →cumani 'barbarian, vandal' * '-ade' forms names of materials: **hagala 'cow' →haglode 'beef' **tolok 'tree' →tolkade 'wood' * '-cin' for diminutives and '-mu' for augmentatives: **pilac 'heart' →pilacin 'little heart' **bur 'settlement' →bormu 'town' * '-hob' (in itself meaning 'thing') for inanimate objects: **šil 'beautiful' →šilhob 'ornament' **ziwale 'to play' →ziwalihob 'toy' *'''-waš''' forms names of people according to their affinities: ** jego 'hurt' →jegwaš 'cruel' The most unusual part of the Nolikan derivational system are infixes, used to form verbs from verbs. They are usually placed before the last consonant of the root: *'⟨tu⟩' - causative (used only with intransitive verbs) ** jolo 'to live' →jotulo 'to conceive', 'to beget' *'⟨xa⟩' - trying to achieve the meaning of the main verb ** pela 'to hold' →pexala 'to desire' *'⟨za⟩' - inchoative ** xirpe 'to sleep' →xirzape 'to fall asleep' *'⟨li⟩' - strengthening the meaning of the main verb ** tiba 'to lead' →tiliba 'to rule' *'⟨ni⟩' - end of an action ** jolo 'to live' →jonilo 'to die of natural causes' The only really productive prefix is ku-', adding a sinister aspect to the meaning: * kel 'water' →kukel 'flood' * šub 'fast' →kušub 'mad, insane' Nolikan has also many compound words, especially tatpurusas, cf. ''duštisabax 'dachshund' (literally: hole-dog). Compounds with verbs (cf. zaljun < zala-jun 'sing-woman', 'songstress') and relational nouns (cf. biškawada 'belly-below', 'crotch') are also common. There are two affixes used to form verbs from nouns: *-e''' - 'to perform an action' **xur 'breath' → xure 'to breathe' *'''-no''' - 'to imitate someone or something' ** sabax 'dog' → sabaxno 'to follow' Periphrastic constructions are often employed instead, e.g. anka eja 'to be purified', literally 'to become pure'. Syntax Nolikan uses typically SOV word order and is consistently head-final. As in any fusional language, the word order is more free than in English. Equative sentences Nolikan has no copula. The meaning is achieved by combining two nouns in the absolutive: *Ankawidan karu 'Land of the Pure is rich' *Kur mij gilbad 'This man is a chieftain' There is also an emphatic construction with the noun toš 'equal': *Hejamo Warestan huje lemyadano toš 'The Golden Order is (equal to) happiness for all' Expressing possession There is no verb meaning 'to have'. Two constructions, both using the dative, can be used to replace it: *Joniš yag kenate. 'The woman as a knife', literally: 'A knife has been given to the woman' *Joniš yag tiste. Literally, 'woman's knife exists'. The construction with the existential verb tis in the aorist is obligatory when talking about inalienable entities: *Tawiš šil xorak tiste 'She has beautiful eyes' Comparisons Comparisons are done using the relational noun pan 'beyond': *Isol Xasibo panam wimaj. 'Isol is stronger than Khasib' (literally: strong beyond Khasib) Superlative is replaced by the word hupan, etymologically hud-pan 'beyond all': *Hupan perdu 'the ugliest' *Hupan yatwe 'the wisest' Before non-adjectival nouns, hupan acquires the meaning of 'having the most typical qualities of an X' or 'superior as an X': *Hupan kuwid 'the greatest despot' *Hupan binat 'the most girly girl' Relative clauses There is a relativizer, dar, used to form all relative clauses: *Mijil solkel mahe 'Man drinks wine' **mijil mahe dar solkel 'the wine drunk by the man' **tol solkel mahe dar mij 'the man that drinks wine' *Axcin arģa 'Boy sits' **Arģa dar axcin 'the boy that sits' *Haģe hobne ļubam joludan ļaļub 'Without those things life is worthless' **So ļubam joludan ļaļub dar hobak 'Things, without which life is worthless' Pronouns in the absolutive are absorbed by the relativizer; those in other cases are not. Often, especially with temporal and locative phrases, periphrastic strategies are employed instead of the relativizer, such as nominalization: *Cumanil zalsaha xazum karzatoris. 'They kissed when the barbarian was singing' (literally: during the barbarian's singing) Conjunctions Among most popular ones are: *'ahno' 'so': Jahred da, ahno la zahlare 'He is dead, so he won't answer' *'aštu' 'in order to', 'so that': Mek mulut aštu taļ mandit. 'People work in order to eat' *'bil' 'because': Meljandiyak ruzak bil šarnaxce jimrat 'The Meljanese are evil, because they worship sharnakhs' *'ibam' used to introduce locative clauses: Ibam hanwayak tiste, wice xirpisa korja 'We want to sleep where there are flowers' *'sax' 'but': la nokri da, sax arzu 'It's no hawk, it's an eagle' *'si' 'and': axcin si binat 'Boy and girl' *'ter' 'if': Ter šec la mulusa korja, la mandi 'If you don't want to work, don't eat' **''ter'' is also used to introduce temporal clauses: Ter cumanil zalata, karzatoris 'They kissed when the barbarian was singing' *'ul' 'or': cetik ul jahrida 'Free or dead' Unlike English, Nolikan does not permit connecting sentences without conjunctions. Quoting Nolikan does not use indirect speech. The sentence quoted is incorporated into the main one as the pronoun kur and then pronounced verbatim: *Botil kur carata, ģitoļ zalat, literally 'The old man said this, the stars sing'. Personal names A child is given name on its first birthday and it is believed that Esakh (God) gives it a soul in this very moment. Masculine names are either references to martial (Ahmelati 'Friendly Arm') or moral (Dixkiļub 'Without Frivolity') virtues or to animals admired for their strength and virility (Tehen 'Tiger'). Girls can have names of moral virtues too (Ankadan 'Purity'), but more often their names allude to beauty (Barhejam 'Precious Gold') or pleasure (Core Xaje 'Sweet Seven'). It is characteristic of the Nolikans to use negated names of vices (Alikril 'Not Vain'), in line with the Achobisak commandment to express contempt for Kutas. Use of compound nouns as names is considered aristocratic. The name of the prophet, Nurxasib (literally, 'Virtue-Peace') is not given to any other man, but various phonetically similar names are common. Writing system Nolikan has its own syllabary, based on the Yoketian syllabary, which was created from earlier ideograms. For example the syllable is written using a descendant of ancient Yoketian hieroglyph for ram (ya'ak). Each CV syllable has its own unique glyph. More complex syllables are written using combinations of two or three glyphs, as in maxke, written . Schleicher's fable Nolikan version Ecanam, tawiš la kumaļ tis dar jiyaš ubadak linate: ļakil šuhad ohruhob ohrato si ļakil pod šuhadan apato si ļakil mij šubam apato. Jiyal ubaje kur carata: „Ne pilac jego, ter mijil ubadak osturo dar neš line.” Ubadoļ haģe zahlata: „Kumri, ya jiya, lune pilacak jego, ter kur luce line: podwidam mijil kumaļo nis ģet uxtelax xot. Si jiyaš la kumaļ tis.” Jiyaš kur kumrate, ahno tawa šolmiš colilato. Gloss Hill-LOC, 3sg.DAT no wool exist.PRS.3 REL sheep-DAT horse-PL see-PST.3: one-ERG heavy wagon pull-PST.3 and one-ERG big load carry-PST.3 and one-ERG man fast-LOC carry-PST.3. Sheep-ERG horse-DAT.PL this speak-PST.3: "my heart hurt.PRS.3, when man-ERG horse-PL drive.PRS.3 REL 1sg.DAT see.PRS.3." Horse.ERG.PL that answer.PST.3: "Listen-IMP, VOC sheep, 1pl.EXCL.GEN heart.PL hurt.PRS.3, when this 1pl.EXCL.DAT see.PRS.3: lord-LOC man-ERG wool-GEN warm own clothing make.PRS.3. And sheep-DAT no wool exist.PRS.3" Sheep.DAT this hear.PST.3, so 3sg plain-DAT flee-PST.3 Literal translation On a hill, a sheep which had no wool saw horses: one was pulling a heavy wagon, one was carrying a big load and one was carrying fast a man. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart hurts when I see man driving horses". The horses answered: "Listen, sheep, our hearts hurt when we see this: man, the lord, makes his warm clothes from wool. And sheep has no wool". Sheep heard this so she fled for a plain" See also *Nolikan dictionary *Another Nolikan text (a song) with a translation Category:Conlangs